By Musa T. Bey

“This is America.” The phrase drips with contradiction. Spoken with pride or protest, whispered in anguish or shouted in defiance. It’s a phrase that haunts the bones of this land—a nation where the flag flies high while the people fall low. To truly understand America is to unravel its myths, confront its violence, and dare to name its truths.

This is America—not the shining city on a hill, but the empire on the edge of collapse. A settler colony soaked in blood. A capitalist machine running on stolen land, stolen lives, and stolen labor. What we call America is not a country in the traditional sense—it is a project. An experiment in domination. A laboratory for exploitation wrapped in red, white, and blue.

I. Foundation of Genocide and Chains

America was not founded on freedom. It was founded on extermination.

The so-called “discovery” of this land by European colonizers marked the beginning of one of the greatest genocides in human history. Entire Indigenous nations were decimated—slaughtered, removed, or forced into reservations and poverty. The Doctrine of Discovery justified the theft. Manifest Destiny gave it spiritual cover. And the U.S. government, since its inception, has worked tirelessly to complete the conquest.

At the same time, the Atlantic slave trade gave birth to another monstrous pillar: chattel slavery. Africans were stolen, shipped, sold, and shackled to fuel the economy of this new empire. Cotton, tobacco, sugar—all harvested by Black hands. Black bodies turned into property. Black suffering turned into profit.

This is America—built on the graves of the Indigenous and the backs of the enslaved.

What followed was no redemption. Jim Crow replaced chains with laws. The prison system became the new plantation. From convict leasing to mass incarceration, the logic never changed: extract labor, enforce racial hierarchy, and break the will of the oppressed. It was never about justice. It was always about control.

II. The Myth of the Middle Class, the Reality of the Underclass

They say America is the land of opportunity. But for whom?

The middle class was always a manipulated buffer—used to separate the poor from the rich, the oppressed from their potential power. For every White family that moved into a suburban dream, a Black family was redlined into public housing and poverty. The GI Bill and New Deal were distributed along racial lines. Wealth accumulated generationally—if you were allowed in the door. Everyone else got scraps.

Today, the middle class is shrinking while the billionaire class balloons. Wages stagnate. Rent skyrockets. Healthcare is a luxury. Education is a debt sentence. The richest corporations pay zero taxes while working families drown in bills. The gig economy sells us freedom with no benefits. Amazon workers piss in bottles while Jeff Bezos builds rockets.

This is America—where poverty is criminalized and wealth is worshipped.

And yet, the language of meritocracy persists. “If you work hard, you’ll succeed.” But what of the laborer who dies in debt? What of the single mother working three jobs just to feed her children? What of the artist, the teacher, the builder—whose labor holds this country together, but who can’t afford to see a doctor?

The American Dream is a lie. And millions are waking up.

III. The Police and the Plantation

There can be no freedom without safety. But who gets to feel safe in America?

The police were never designed to protect the people. Their origin lies in slave patrols, anti-union squads, and settler militias. From the very beginning, policing in America has been about enforcing property rights, racial boundaries, and social order. Whether through nightsticks or no-knock raids, tear gas or tasers, the mission remains the same.

Every year, police kill more people than any other so-called “developed” nation. The numbers are staggering, but they tell only part of the story. For every person murdered, thousands more are harassed, brutalized, surveilled, and incarcerated. And for the Black and Brown working class, the police are not a public service—they are an occupying force.

This is America—where a badge is a license to kill, and accountability is a pipe dream.

And behind the badge? Prisons. Cages. Corporations. The U.S. holds over two million people behind bars—the highest incarceration rate in the world. And it’s not by accident. It’s by design. Private prisons rake in profits. Phone companies charge families extortion rates to speak to loved ones. Prison labor builds everything from furniture to military equipment, often for pennies.

This is not a criminal justice system. It is a system of social control. And it must be dismantled, root and branch.

IV. Cultural Warfare and Weaponized Identity

America exports war, not just with bombs—but with culture.

The entertainment industry packages trauma for consumption. Black death becomes a genre. Revolution is romanticized but never realized. Corporate media sells representation without transformation. A Black CEO. A trans police chief. A Latina drone pilot. The system adapts, absorbs, and survives. Inclusion becomes a mask for imperialism.

This is America—where capitalism wears a rainbow, where Black faces in high places justify the same old oppression.

Don’t be fooled. Diversity is not liberation. Representation without revolution is a dead end. Our identities must not be weaponized against our movements. We must remember: it was not access to power that freed our ancestors—it was resistance to it.

True liberation demands the end of the system itself—not a more colorful version of the same machine.

V. Resistance Is the Heartbeat

Yet for every horror, there is hope. For every injustice, there is a response. Beneath the surface of empire, people are rising.

From Standing Rock to Jackson, Mississippi, from the Bronx to Oakland, communities are organizing, feeding each other, defending each other, healing each other. Mutual aid networks. Freedom schools. People’s assemblies. Workers’ cooperatives. Cop watches. Rent strikes. Political education circles. Prisoner support collectives. All rooted in the belief that we can build a new world.

The legacy of Harriet Tubman lives in every freedom fighter who risks it all. The legacy of Fred Hampton lives in every revolutionary who believes the people deserve everything. The legacy of Assata Shakur lives in every dream of Black liberation beyond borders.

This is America too—the America they try to erase.

And so, the question is not “What is America?” The question is, “What will we make of it?”

Because America is a battleground. Not just of ideologies, but of futures. One future leads to continued collapse—ecological devastation, militarized repression, permanent poverty, and cultural decay. The other leads to freedom—a decolonized, anti-capitalist, community-controlled future rooted in dignity, cooperation, and justice.

That future will not be handed to us. It must be built. And defended.

This is America.

A warning. A promise. A battlefield.

Which side are you on?